


Pleximeter Perplexion

by Bobcatmoran



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: 19th Century Medicine, Canon Era, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-23
Updated: 2019-08-23
Packaged: 2020-10-01 17:53:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,567
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20356846
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bobcatmoran/pseuds/Bobcatmoran
Summary: Joly and Combeferre test out the latest in medical equipment on Bossuet.





	Pleximeter Perplexion

**Author's Note:**

  * For [SincereMercy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SincereMercy/gifts).

Bossuet knocked on the door to Joly’s lodgings in his usual pattern of three quick knocks. Hearing no answer, and finding the door unlocked, he walked in. “Hello, Jolllly! I, er, oh,” Bossuet said, observing Combeferre doing…something…with a shirtless Joly. “Am I interrupting something? I can just…” He gestured towards the door, a grimace on his face.

“Oh!” Combeferre exclaimed, seeming to just notice Bossuet. “No, not at all. In fact, would you be willing to be a volunteer in an important medical study?”

“That depends,” Bossuet hedged, remembering the time he had been asked to adjuciate an argument on whether leeches were superior to fleams as a bloodletting instrument (his personal opinion was that neither was superior, and he wished his blood to stay inside him despite Joly’s best medical opinions, thank you very much, as he always felt woozy afterwards).

“It’s quite harmless, I assure you,” Joly said. “We are trying to figure out what the most superior material is for a pleximeter.”

“Plec-who?”

“Here,” Combeferre said, handing Bossuet what appeared to be nothing more than a small rectangle of ivory, with little handles on two sides.

“Ah, well, of course, a pleximeter,” Bossuet said sagely. “Obviously. A very important, cutting-edge medical device for doing important medical things, I am certain. Either that or a very small hat.” He perched it on top of his head. “Quite à la mode, yes?”

Combeferre rolled his eyes and took it back. “It is, in fact, à la mode indeed in medical circles, a new scientific instrument. You use it for percussion, like so.” He placed it on Joly’s chest, held his ear up to it, and tapped on the pleximeter with a small hammer. “Piorry says that each organ of the body has its own unique resonance. My ear isn’t quite attuned to that yet, but you can certainly hear the difference when a chest is congested.” He moved the device slightly, then tapped on it again. “Joly, I am fairly certain that you do not actually have pleurisy_. _Your chest sounds free of inflammation, resonant throughout.”

“Oh, I suppose it is just my usual spring cold then,” Joly said, coughing slightly. “My nose gets so stuffy, and then it moves down into my throat and then feels like it’s going further down into my chest for awhile. Maybe a purgative to accelerate the downwards movement and flush out the toxins faster?”

“It can’t hurt,” Combeferre said. “As the weather gets warmer, that should help, too, as the cold air can be irritating.”

“If you plan to be purging yourself, I may as well go back and see if Jean Prouvaire will put up with me for a few more days,” Bossuet said. “He was quite cross with me about the incident with his flute and that monuted antelope head of his, but he is quick to forgive.”

“My dear Bossuet,” Joly said, pulling on his shirt and emerging with a pout, “I thought you were going to help Combeferre and I with our little scientific dilemma.”

“Did I actually agree to that? Oh, Joly, don’t pout like that, you know I’m helpless to resist.” 

Joly cocked his head and intensified the pout.

Bossuet sighed, and then smiled. “What do you require my great medical expertise for?”

Combeferre set the pleximeter down on the table, then pulled an assortment of similar small, flat rectangles out of his coat pocket and set them down next to it. One was made of a reddish wood, one was made of leather, and one had a metallic sheen to it. “There’s some debate going around about what material makes the best pleximeter,” he said. “I personally find that metal is too resonant and leather not resonant enough, but I borrowed these off some fellow interns to test them.”

“I like the cedar,” Joly said. “It’s nicely aromatic. And I also don’t see, Combeferre, why you need to use that hammer. It’s just one more thing to carry around when you can use your finger just fine.” At Bossuet’s raised eyebrows at the remark about using his finger, Joly rolled his eyes. “Not like _that_, just tapping on it.” He reached over and tapped Bossuet on the arm with his index finger.

“If I’m doing percussion in any frequency,” Combeferre said, “I’d wear out my finger. Better to use the hammer. At any rate, Bossuet, we’ve been trying to ascertain which material works best. But it’s difficult, as I can hear what they sound like on Joly, and he can hear what they sound like on me, but we might be resonant to different degrees and thus are not having the same experience. So, with your permission, I would like to try the pleximeters out on you, and that way Joly and I will be making our verdict based on a uniform standard.”

“Well, in the name of scientific advancement, I accept,” Bossuet said, shrugging off his coat. “Shirt off?”

“If you please,” Combeferre said. “Fabric can muffle the results, and I would like to test them over several different organs.”

Bossuet obligingly took off his waistcoat and pulled his shirt off over his head. 

Joly made a squeak of distress. “Bossuet, where did you get that bruise?”

“Hm?” Bossuet looked down at the large purple blotch on his side. “Oh, funny story that. So you know how Prouvaire uses that antelope head as a clothes rack? Well I was trying to play his sackbut and—“

“Er, can this wait? Only I promised Sanderson that I would meet him for lunch and give him back his pleximeter then,” Combeferre said.

“Fine then,” Bossuet said, with an imitation of Joly’s pout.

Combeferre picked up the metal pleximeter and breathed on it. “My apologies, this might still be a bit cold,” he said, before putting it on Bossuet’s chest and then bending over it and hitting it with the little hammer. _Tink tink tink. _He moved it a handswidth, then hit it again. Then down towards the stomach and repeated the ritual. Joly dutifully replicated the routine, and then repeated it yet again, this time using his finger to _tink_ at the pleximeter. It all sounded the same to Bossuet, and he honestly had no idea what they were getting out of the experience, but they seemed to be enjoying themselves. Words like _osseus_ and _hepatic_ were thrown about. They repeated their ritual with the other three pleximeters. Combeferre mentioned that Bossuet’s belly sounded quite _aqueous_, which Bossuet decided meant that he was well hydrated.

While Combeferre and Joly discussed the results of their experiment, Bossuet took up the abandoned percussion hammer and started tapping the various pleximeters in rhythm. _Tink tink tup tup tak tak tik. Tink tink tup tup tak tak tik. _He then started absently tapping on his leg to the rhythm of a song Prouvaire had been singing earlier that morning, going up and down his leg with the pitch of the notes. 

Suddenly, his foot kicked up. He tentatively tried tapping the hammer in the same place, just below his kneecap. His foot kicked again, with no effort on his part, as though it belonged to someone else entirely.

“Joly,” he said. “Joly, look at this.” He tapped around his lower knee, and when he hit the right spot, his foot kicked up again.

“Yes? You are able to kick, well done,” Joly said.

“No, that’s the thing, my leg is doing this all on its own if I just hit the right point, like I’m some sort of automaton,” Bossuet said.

“Let me try,” Combeferre said. He stooped down next to Bossuet, took up the hammer and tapped at Bossuet’s knee until he nearly got kicked for his troubles. “Peculiar,” he said with a frown. He then took a seat at the other chair at the table and tried it on himself. When his own leg kicked up, he said, “Joly! Joly, you must try this! It is such an odd sensation!”

Joly obligingly switched places with Combeferre and tried it himself. “Oh!” he exclaimed as his foot kicked up. “Oh, that is so strange!” He tried it again. “There must be some sort of connection that runs down the front of the lower leg. Next time I can get a good leg, I am going to look for it.”

“Please let me know when you do so,” Combeferre said. “I’d be willing to chip in towards the leg for a place at the dissection.”

“Absolutely, my friend,” Joly said.

“So, not to change the subject, but your scientific inquiry,” Bossuet said. “What of it?”

“Hm? Oh, I think the ivory works the best,” Combeferre said.

“But the cedar is a close second,” Joly added. “And I really do think that since it’s so pleasantly aromatic, it might be safer to use, since it will help to counteract any malignant miasmas.”

“Good point,” Combeferre said. He pulled out his watch and glanced at it. “I should head out. Sanderson is probably wondering where I’ve gotten to.”

“Is he an American with that name?” Bossuet asked. 

“He is indeed. From _New Jersey_,” Combeferre said, carefully pronouncing the unfamiliar words. 

“Ask him if he has seen any bears,” Bossuet said. “Prouvaire says they are everywhere in America.”

“I shall,” Combeferre said, donning his hat. “Good day to you both, and thank you for your assistance, Bossuet.”

“My pleasure.”

**Author's Note:**

> Please do not try to medicate your allergies the way Joly does. He is working off of an 1830s knowledge of medicine, which lacks germ theory but does include a worrying enthusiasm for laxatives and bleeding.
> 
> Also, for the record, the sackbut is the Renaissance-era predecessor of the trombone and thus not nearly as hilarious as one might think from the name. 
> 
> “Aquatic” was one of the Type Sounds of auscultatory percussion, and the opposite of the “osseus” resonance that one could hear over bone. Despite the name, aquatic resonance was most prominent over fatty tissue.
> 
> The reflex hammer your own doctor uses is, in fact, a descendant of the percussion hammer. The trio in this fic just figured it out a few decades early.


End file.
